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Playing the Victim Card: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Vandread]]'': During their [[Kangaroo Court]], one of the female pirates says the government is 'playing the victim' when the judge says they are trying to topple the government.
* In the first episode of ''[[Darker than Black]]'', Chiaki discovers that two of her "friends" are Contractor special agents that are hunting her. When she starts running from them, one says that [[It's All About Me|that's not very friendly of her]]. Given that Contractors are fairly emotionless, this amounts to "just because I'm an emotionless killer doesn't mean I don't have feelings", and thus isn't meant to be taken very seriously.
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* Used to agitate Medaka in ''[[Medaka Box]]'' by Kumagawa as {{spoiler|after he and Zenkichi appeared to have died after their Student Council battle. However the events that cause their supposed death were due to Zenkichi actions so technically Kumagawa was the victim. Kumagawa made this statement after his powers brought him back though. Also, Zenkicki [[Not Quite Dead|was brought back by someone else, though he wasn't dead.]]}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* Lex Luthor fits the first type in one ''[[Justice League]]'' episode where he convinces the Amazo android that he is a victim of a vigilante Justice League- and elicits the android's help, at least temporarily, in bringing the League down. Later, in ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', he refines his arguments (claiming that though he has made mistakes, they were in pursuance of checking the dangerous power of an out-of-control Justice League) to great success for his presidential campaign.
== [[Fan Works]] ==▼
▲== Fan Works ==
* One of the ''[[Star Trek]]'' fanfic compilations plays with this with a story where the holographic Ming the Merciless knockoff Dr. Chaotica has been reprogrammed from being a shallow powermonger to a complex "my father never loved me, everyone at school ostracized me" pile of wangst. [[Star Trek: Voyager|Paris]] is infuriated. He wanted to have fun, not worry about motivations.
* [[Cori Falls]]'s renditions of [[Terrible Trio]] [[Pokémon|Jessie, James and Meowth]] practically ''live'' on this trope. Even after they "go good" they continually describe themselves as "victims of circumstance" to explain away their former lives of crime.
== [[Film]] ==▼
▲== Film ==
* This is Commodus' shtick in ''[[Gladiator]]''. If he's not murdering, or ordering people to be murdered, expect him to be whining about how awfully vilified his altruistic self is.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* Willougby of ''[[Sense and Sensibility (novel)|Sense and Sensibility]]'' for the second type, trying to justify his behavior with [[I'm a Man, I Can't Help It]], but failing miserably. It might have worked if he had been relating the story to anyone who didn't personally know the people he hurt. The ridiculously rich John Dashwood and his wife also qualify, constantly espousing their apparent poverty to themselves and others to shirk the responsibility of being charitable to John's half-sisters.
* Mrs. Norris of ''[[Mansfield Park]]'' constantly preaches about all the hard work she does taking care of everyone and all the sacrifices she makes and, like Willoughby, seems to fully believe she's a kind, generous, caring aunt... when she's actually a stingy, vain, pompous, meddling, insufferable know-it-all who spoils one set of nieces and nephews only to make [[The Unfavorite]] niece feel more horrible.
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* Satan in ''[[Paradise Lost]]''—need we mention the [[Draco in Leather Pants|frightening tendency to believe him]]?
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Firefly]]'': Saffron does this to disarm Mal (quite literally) at the end of the episode "Trash". It's strongly implied that she's been carrying that card in her back pocket for a long time—and might even deserve it. Of course, her following actions sort of decrease our sympathy . . .
* ''[[Oz]]'': The supposed victim? {{spoiler|Clayton Hughes}}. After talking a to inmate Simon Adebisi, a sense of purpose births in {{spoiler|Hughes}}- racial politics. After attempting to {{spoiler|kill Governor Devlin}}, he is sent to the very prison he originally worked at. His defense? He's a political prisoner set up by an unjust system. What happens after that? [[It Got Worse|Well...]]
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* Prince Sprocket pulls this on Auric in ''[[Power Rangers Zeo]]'' to get him to attack the Rangers. Auric realizes he's been had when the Rangers refuse to attack back and tell him they serve under Zordon. Cue [[Oh Crap]] from Sprocket.
== [[Theatre]] ==
* Shylock in ''The Merchant of Venice''. Note that most modern critics think Shylock [[Alternative Character Interpretation|had a point]].
** Shylock's famous speech is referenced several times in the film ''[[To Be or Not to Be]]''; given that several of the heroic characters are Jewish, the film takes the sympathetic modern interpretation. But at one point, [[The Quisling]] argues in a similar manner that "Nazis are people too", and he is definitely not presented as sympathetic.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* Xemnas in ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' laments how he and the rest of Organization XIII had no other choice than to take the actions they did, but Sora, [[The Messiah|of all people]], says otherwise, and Xemnas drops the act and admits the truth. [[Draco in Leather Pants|Not that the]] [[Fan Dumb]] [[Draco in Leather Pants|ever listened...]]
* Dr. Wily at the end of most ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' games.
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* The PC's love interest has this played on them in ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal]]'' {{spoiler|Of course, it's done by an undead monster to set up a rather brutal ambush.}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==▼
▲== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Does Not Play Well With Others]]'' has a [http://www.doesnotplaywellwithothers.com/comic/pwc-0229 literal one]. But there's always someone bitchier, and with perverted sense of humor rather than absent. Oops.
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* Ratigan does this in ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'', lamenting on how, because of Basil, he hasn't had a moment's peace of mind in years. The "insufferable pipsqueak" has ''ruined'' his [[Sarcasm Mode|freedom to commit crimes]]!
* Megatron in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' probably ''really does'' think that the Decepticons have been treated unfairly, having been driven from their home like common insects by the Autobots, but he gives a speech along these lines to turn the Constructicons.
* Cartman does this all the freaking time on ''[[South Park]]''. Like when he actually convinced himself that ''he'', rather than Jimmy, invented the "Fishsticks Joke", and proceeded to get mad at Jimmy for trying to claim credit. After making fun of Wendy's breast cancer class report, Cartman went crying to Wendy's parents to keep her from beating the snot out of him. After that... {{spoiler|he kept it up and got the snot beaten out of him anyway}}.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* When confronted about the obvious illegality of [[Soulja Boy]]'s bootleg games consoles, the rapper lashed out with a series of tweets, claiming that critics hate and diss at him for being black, stating that people mock at his products because they didn't want to see "a black man get money" and "Why y’all want to see a black man fail so bad smh." This race card approach didn't obviously sit well with the gaming community, with some comparing him unfavourably to fellow rapper-slash-
* Complaining about how he was the victim of any number of people, organizations and conspiracies was the stock-in-trade of [[Donald Trump]] when he was [[The Presidents of the United States of America (politics)|President of the United States]], and played a major part in his baseless contention that his defeat in the 2020
* An inevitable reality of politics, both in the US and elsewhere. The right wing, particularly the alt-right subset, frequently accuses liberals of playing the victim card
{{reflist}}
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